Paris Apartments

The Morrison Hotel Mystery

The death of Jim Morrison is not the only mystery in the Rue Beautreillis. On this street where the leader of The Doors spent the last few months of his life and where he (probably) died, another door stands curiously alone. But what is it?

The last bastion standing

Today only one significant element of the city’s 19th century fortifications remains standing. Where is the Bastion n°1 and what purpose does it serve today?

The World's Oldest Surviving Basketball Court

How did a game invented by the YMCA in America cross the Atlantic in the late 19th century, and why has this Paris court survived so long?

The Longest Street in Paris

An attempt to find the soul of the city's longest thoroughfare.

Belgium by the Seine

A trip to Elisabethville on the trace of old postcard locations leads me to abandoned beach resorts and experimental 1950s architecture.

Friday, 24 June 2016

Running throughout the summer until October, Grand Train is a large-scale installation is a disused SNCF facility in the north of Paris. If the scale of the site and the activities on offer are impressive, the diversity of the visitors is a little less wide.Open for 12 hours a day from Wednesday to Sunday, Grand Train mixes outdoor zones on disused rail tracks, fast food and a kind of impromptu railway museum. In a city lacking space it offers a generous pocket of air, even if the weather has not been particularly kind since it opened at the end of April.